North America: November 9, 2010Australia: November 9, 2010Europe: November 9, 2010

Genre

First-Person Shooter

Rating

Mature (17+)

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the seventh full installment in the Call of Duty series. It was developed by Treyarch and is set, for the first time, in the Cold War period. It has brand new features in multiplayer such as Combat Record and Theatre, and it also sees the return of Nazi Zombies from Call of Duty: World at War. To date, four DLC packs have been released; First Strike, Escalation, Annihilation and Rezurrection.

The biggest action series of all time returns! Call of Duty: Black Ops is an entertainment experience that will take you through conflicts across the globe, as the elite Black Ops forces fight in the deniable operations and secret wars that occurred under the veil of the Cold War.

One of the new game modes in the multiplayer is Wager Match, where the player can bet their currency (CP, or COD Points) that they have earned and gamble it. If at the end of the match the player comes in the top three, then they are "in the money" and they make a profit; the other three players lose currency. The player in first place, gains the most money - they receive three times their initial bet (but still have to pay the buy-in, resulting in a net gain of twice the buy-in amount). Similarly, the player in second place receives 1.8x their buy-in, for a profit of 0.8x, and the player in third place receives 1.2x their buy-in, for a profit of 0.2x. In the event of a tie, the same amount of prize money is always distributed, and it is split evenly for those tied for a certain place. Whilst in the lobby, the player has the choice to "double down." If everyone in the lobby chooses to double down, the buy-in and the prizes are doubled.

In One In The Chamber, the player gets only three lives and an M1911 containing one bullet. A single shot kills an enemy. If the player kills another player enemy, they receive another bullet. This means it is possible to stockpile bullets when enemies are killed with the knife. If the player is out of ammo, they have to attempt to kill the other players using the knife. The player who gets most kills gets the 1st place. Unlike other Wager Matches, ties are impossible. This is due to the fact that every time a player loses the last of their three lives, every other player gets a 'survival bonus'. Whilst there are not enough players in the game for the potential points accumulated by this method to equal another kill, it serves to differentiate the players who have got equal numbers of kill; the player who has outlasted the most other players will have more points.

Another one of the new game modes is the Gun Game. This is where the player starts with a basic weapon, the Python and after each kill, they progress up the ladder of guns. A player wins once they've managed to get a kill with each of the guns. If a get stabbed ("Humiliated"), they are demoted down and will go back to the previous gun. There are 20 weapons in total in the Gun Game:

In Sharpshooter, every player uses the same weapon and the same attachement. The weapons and attachments change each 45 seconds. Killing an enemy with the weapon gains the player 100 points while killing an enemy with the knife gains them 25 points. Bonuses are awarded for consecutive kills:

Sleight of Hand pro after the 1st kill

Lightweight pro after the 2nd kill

Steady Aim pro after the 3rd kill

x2 score multiplier after the 4th kill

Perks and multipliers are lost on death.

Any weapon can be selected in Sharpshooter, even the Special Weapons Grim Reaper and Death Machine. This means that Sharpshooter is often considered the most fair of the Wager Matches, as the players each have the same gun and do not know what is coming next. The last round of the Sharpshooter game is called Sharpshooter round, in which all players get twice as many points per kill.

A new added feature is customization. With this, you're able to customize your character and weapons exactly the way you want to use them, using the in-game currency to buy and equip your customizations. You can buy guns, camouflages, attachments, emblem designs, perks, and have the ability to put your clan tag on your weapon. Furthermore, you can customise your sight reticle. So instead of being stuck with cross hairs or a red dot sight, you can choose from a selection of different reticle shapes and colors.

You can unlock more emblems, markings, attachments and camouflages by finishing challenges or leveling up. This is a great way to keep your online identity and make the gamer feel like they are making the game themselves. This is not included in the Wii version of Black Ops.

"All your recent games are available to pull up in the theater to get some video for your file share. I asked Josh Olin, how many videos get saved and he kind of grinned and laughed and said a ton. I played over 15 games and ALL of them were on the list to pull into the theater for editing.

Once you find the game you want and you are in theater you have so much freedom of what you're doing here. The time bar at the bottom is great because it puts green bars on the timeline when you killed someone and red bars on it when you die making it very easy to get to the action.

You are able to do first person, third person, or free roam on the camera allowing any angle you want for the game. You can also slow down game play or speed up gameplay to record your segment. On top of all this, you can watch the game from any players point of view in the game, providing a great resource to watch top players gameplay and strategy and really helping on competitive gameplay options.

Now while in theater mode you there is a button to record which means in order to have this video in your file share for the community to view, you need to record the gameplay or segments. Once in your fileshare, the entire community can view your video. You can tag the video, rate videos etc. Players on your friends list will be able to go in and look at your recent games whether you have them saved or not.

The segment editor on this is very cool and allows you to take clips (up to 10) and put them together with transitions."

Any recorded clip can also be rendered to "My Theater" on callofduty.com. From there you can link your callofduty.com account to your YouTube account. After you do that, every time you render a clip from Black Ops, it will upload directly to YouTube through your account and through one of Treyarch's two accounts, CODblackopsXBOX or CODblackopsPS. "My Theater" is in a beta state as of now, so all clips must be 30 seconds or shorter to render.

So far, we have been told that there is a new theme to the offline, split-screen mode. It has been confirmed that, while various basic factors about the match can be controlled like in previous installments, you also have various other opportunities. To start with, in split-screen offline mode, every unlockable thing has been unlocked. Also, you are able to control what weapons are allowed in the match. Whereas before, in other Call of Duty games, you had to trust the other players to only use sniper rifles, in this game, you can control which weapons are available to use.

Also, Treyarch has allowed for online Splitscreen as well. This allows you to attach a separate controller and let someone else play as a guest. They would have a temporary guest account, for example, the guest of "JD_2020" would get the Screen ID "JD_2020 (1)". This is only temporary, and all unlocks are lost at the end of the session. On Xbox Live only, you can choose splitscreen, and allow the other player to sign in to their fully activated Gold account.

Also, the Camera Spike equipment may not be used in online or offline split screen. If this was allowed, one person could set a C4 down and the other could put a Camera Spike down facing it. The first person could then watch the Camera Spike's feed, and detonate the C4 as soon as someone comes by. As a result, Treyarch has banned the Camera Spike on split screen in attempt to avoid cheap or unfair tactics like the one mentioned above.

Call of Duty Black Ops featured a lot of interesting Killstreaks. They are 15 in total and each one requires a certain amount of COD points to unlock (depending on the number of kills needed to get). The Killstreaks section in the online mode is unlocked at level 10.

The zombies have returned! The fan favorite Co-Op mode, made famous from Call of Duty World at War, is back as you can pick up to 3 friends and use a multitude of weapons to fight off endless waves of blood thirsty zombies. Fight to survive in one of the most thrilling and critically-acclaimed Co-Op experiences in gaming and survive as many rounds as you can! If you bought the Hardened Edition of Black Ops, you can access the four Nazi Zombies maps from World At War. These include tweaks - for instance, the characters on Nacht Der Untoten and Verruckt now talk as they do in the other two maps.

Combat Training allows you to play against enemy controlled Al with your friends, online, and split screen. This is used to try and recreate online play for gamers new to the FPS Shooter genre. You can change the difficulty, the amount of players, the time, the score limit, almost anything!

The objective is in sight, but your backup’s been taken out and there’s no time to wait for reinforcements. Two defenders carelessly wait by the capture point, but a third more carefully covers the flag from a balcony above. You need something that can take out the grouped soldiers.

Enter the Valkyrie Rockets.

The Valkyrie Rockets killstreak is accessible after 7 kills. Activate it to call in a Care Package drop with a launcher and two rockets. Equip the launcher and move to an open position. Now here's when things get interesting.

After launching a rocket, you retain control over its trajectory. It travels at high speeds, but it’s got a lot of mobility. Swerve around obstacles and over rooftops. Enemies are highlighted for easy kills. If you need to cover ground quickly, the rocket even has a boost function, plus a manual detonation trigger for extra power and control.

The Valkyrie Rockets killstreak is particularly effective when defending objectives from a distance. Blasting an enemy off a Domination point, or a flag, or quickly clearing enemy headquarters is vastly more satisfying with the Valkyrie Rockets. Use their mobility to surprise enemies and prevent your targets from retaliating.

How will you use the Valkyrie Rockets? Will you save them to defend and assault objectives, wait for groups of enemies to open themselves up to fire, or simply let loose into the open skies, guiding the rocket across the map and into the enemy lines?

The Valkyrie Rockets is a very useful killstreak that can help your team members as well as yourself. Hope this will be useful to you. This, along with the Killstreaks Chopper Gunner and Gunship are not included in the Wii version.